Scab
by thegreenwonder
Summary: In her dreams, Jean Grey is haunted by a mysterious someone. Slight AU. OneShot.


Author's Note: This is based on the book X-Men: Children of the Atom, but adapted slightly to fit the X-Men: Evolution storyline. I suppose this would take place after the mansion has been burned down and rebuilt. Say, post-Blind Alley, maybe?

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_Crumpled against the wall, under a dim sapphire light._

_The rest of the room was swallowed by darkness._

_Damp._

_She hid her face under crossed arms, but tears did not slide down her cheeks. Anger blazed across green eyes. Her hand reached to feel her scalp. A dull throbbing in her head… but at the same time, it pierced like a relentless stabbing of a dagger._

_She felt a warm wetness seeping through red strands. She winced._

_They had knocked her unconscious hours before when they had taken her from her own bedroom. They probably used the butt of a rifle…_

_Her parents… she prayed to God they were okay._

Clank!

_She gasped, lifting her head quickly, her eyes suddenly glistening with fear. Her mouth was dry, but she forced words from her lips. _

"_Who's… there?"_

_The voice that replied was like a slow hiss… his words were enveloped in hatred... and curiosity… "You a… mutie?"_

"_W-who wants to know…?" she asked, striving to push her growing fear aside, and hoped her words sounded strong._

"_We hate muties. Stomp 'em good. Kill 'em dead…" he jeered in the darkness._

_She struggled to put a hint of boldness in her reply. "Is that a fact…?"_

"_That's… right…" came the low hiss._

"_So are you gonna show me how I'm gonna get stomped? You don't sound like you're killing anything dead…" she replied defiantly, as she began to sense his presence, his thoughts, his… mind… full of anger, but frail nonetheless._

"_Shut up. Whadda you know about it? You're scared. I can feel it all the way over here. My friends are gonna tear you apart…" He paused, and it seemed his next words came from grinning lips. "Gonna be great…"_

'_Feel it? My... fear? You can feel it?' Jean thought, though her confusion only lasted a second as she soon realized what he meant._

"_You're… a mutant, aren't you…?" Knowing that fact changed everything, she thought. He was like her. He was confused, afraid, and angry. Like her. They were so much alike. She suddenly wanted to know more about this enigma. "So what's your name…?"_

"_Ain't got one anymore… I'm just a scab…and…"_

_Jean heard a soft shuffling of movements as he made his way towards her. It took a few moments, and finally, he stepped into the dim light…_

_His face…!_

_It was covered with scabs. Dark dried crusts of skin…_

_It surprised her that there was no malicious grin, no bared fangs, no sadistic smirk. His face was empty of emotion, though his eyes were full of unanswerable questions. His stare pierced her heart, and stopped her breath. There was nothing else she could do but stare right back._

_At last, his lips parted, and out came a chilling whisper. "We're both dead."_

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_Trapped._

_There was a monster in the room, lurking, creeping, impatiently waiting to kill._

_She couldn't move anymore. She felt so weak, so tired. Her shallow breaths were labored. It was not her responsibility anymore to try and breathe, to endure, to survive. She was drifting… farther into the comforting darkness. Her mind was giving up, but her body resisted, and it was with great effort that her heart refused to stop beating… her lungs continued to pump air and… oxygen was transferred into her blood… It was a strenuous cycle that kept her alive._

_She lay on the hard floor, trembling. Scattered electric shocks still surged through her flesh every few seconds. Her face, neck, hands… her pale skin was burnt and bruised. Her blood boiled. And yet, her shaking hands felt like ice._

_Pain… so much pain. Searing… white hot pain! It was so much easier to surrender…_

_God, she was going to die…_

_Her eyelids fluttered slightly._

…_What was going on?_

_Her eyes refused to remain open… but for a brief second, a quick glance…_

_And she saw…_

_Oh God. His face… covered by thick scabs…_

_Burned… scarred… mutilated._

_Hatred…_

"_C-come on, then, Red… lemme h-have… it all…" he whispered, staring intently at her._

_He leaned over her face…_

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Jean released a trembling sharp gasp as her eyes opened. Her rapid heartbeat forced her to take deep breaths until her body calmed. But her mind was another matter. Chaotic scenes swirled in her head.

She shook the persistent images from her mind's eye, and glanced at her alarm clock. 3:58AM.

"It was only a dream," she whispered, shutting her eyes, forcing herself to forget. "But it felt… so damn real."

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Jean could not help but yawn as her pre-calculus teacher wrote a series of equations onto the white board. Her hand hastily copied down notes, but her mind was groggy. The dream had prevented her from a satisfying dose of much needed sleep, and she thanked God that math was her last period for the day. Earlier, when she had abruptly woken up at four in the morning, she had spent almost an hour tossing and turning in bed, but sleep evaded her, and so she grudgingly settled for an early morning bout in the Danger Room.

At least now she could skip this afternoon's session…. and she would figure out what these equations meant later, she thought flippantly. After a well-deserved afternoon nap, of course.

At long last, the final bell rang. Jean quickly gathered her things and shoved them in her backpack. Disturbing scenes from her dream recurred in her head as she weaved her way through the crowded hallway and stopped at her locker.

"Hey, Jean!" Scott greeted cheerfully, leaning with his arm against the locker next to Jean's.

"Hey, Slim. You're in a good mood," said Jean, who could not help the hint of annoyance in her voice as she shoved her English text into her locker.

"Yeah, I — Jean, what's wrong?"

She sighed in frustration, knowing it would be useless to try and shrug the whole thing off with a dismissive "I'm fine". This was Scott after all, her best friend for many years, and, put simply, he could read her like an open book.

"I just… didn't get enough sleep last night…"

Scott studied her. "Bad dream?"

"The same one." She bit her lower lip.

"You know, maybe it's more than just a dream. I mean, I don't know, but..." he breathed in deeply and, in an instant, took on his 'fearless leader' demeanor. "Okay, for the past week, you've refused to tell me what the dream is about, but I think this is getting serious. Jean, you've had this dream for — what, the third time this week?"

"Fourth," Jean corrected weakly, still avoiding his eyes.

"Jean, tell me what happens in this nightmare of yours," he demanded, though his hand was gentle on her shoulder.

"It's just that…" Jean lifted her head to face him, and Scott saw uncertainty in her eyes. "I'll tell you later, okay? When we're not in such a public place."

Scott hesitated, but nodded his head understandingly. "All right. I'll talk to you after Logan's afternoon session then — which I heard you're excused from?"

Jean snorted, shutting her locker. "Only because I already did my session at five this morning!"

Scott simply grinned.

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Jean threw her backpack carelessly on the chair as she stumbled onto her bed. It was almost five thirty in the afternoon, and soccer practice had not gone too well, considering her mind was half-asleep from fatigue. Pulling her blanket to her chin, she closed her eyes… her lips curved into a content smile...

_Finally, sleep…_

She soon succumbed to her exhaustion, though it wasn't long before her smile disappeared.

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"_Here's two words for ya… we're dead."_

_She looked at him, annoyed at his coldness, irked by his keen willingness to surrender to hopelessness._

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"_C-come on, then, Red… lemme h-have… it all…" he whispered._

_His voice… became louder… but at the same time, weaker._

_She noticed that it was empty of the evil emotion called hatred._

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Her dream faded.

It always ended there.

She refused to open her eyes.

_No_, she thought rebelliously, _Scott is right — there is more to this dream_. Perhaps her dream was trying to tell her something, but what? Jean willed herself to reach for that evasive piece of memory… _What happened next…? How does this end?_

In the depths of her mind, her hand fumbled in the darkness, trying to reach what she could not see. The odds were against her, but inwardly she knew that knowing how it all ended was the only way to become free of the recurring nightmare.

_There… in the shadows…!_

She grasped it with bare hands. A memory turned tangible by her telepathy, she held onto it and refused to let go. She had to know! She consumed it with a painful gasp, and it blended with her powerful mind. A sudden burst of telepathic energy, a quick stab of pain, and then—

—a burst dam of exploding thoughts and emotions.

But... these were not her memories. They were his.

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_His strength was leaving him._

_Rough, scabbed arms cradled her limp body, and he carefully lifted her head towards his…_

_He grunted as he fought the consuming darkness that threatened to engulf him. He had to fight; he had to stay a little longer! He had to…_

'_I've unknowingly lived a life full of hatred… perhaps death will be a little more loving', he thought absent-mindedly as he began to absorb… _

— _everything that was killing her._

_He felt her suffering. He made it his own, and by doing so, he was able to take it all — from her._

"_Uuuhhhhh… Daddy…?" she murmured, slowly gaining consciousness._

_He knew his doomed fate: his body was dying… his mind was fading… and his soul was slipping away… Despite it all, he could not help the dark smile that tugged at his lips. _

"…_Not quite, R-red…"_

_He would face death in minutes, but he felt a strange emotion… _

_A strange calming sense of satisfaction, he realized. He was saving her life. Nothing else mattered because it felt right. He was going to give this girl what she deserved. _

_And she deserved to live._

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Hot tears were sliding down her flushed cheeks when Jean finally opened her eyes. She remembered everything now. It had all happened two nights before her first arrival at the Institute. For months, Professor Xavier had been visiting her at her home in Annandale-on-Hudson to help her control her newly manifested powers. The fatal accident with Annie… it had put her on the brink of insanity, until the professor came.

It had been a few months since Professor Xavier first came to her when one day, he said that the periodic visits would no longer suffice. He was setting up a school for kids like her, and he suggested she attend this school not only to attain better instruction on her powers, but also to learn self-defense against…

That night, she did not know who the enemy was, simply that they had come to her home, kidnapped her, and taken her hostage. She did not know what they planned to do to her, but she knew they had chosen her because she was a mutant. They placed her in a dark cell, and there, she met… him. He was a mutant like her.

"_I'm just a scab…" he had said to her._

_They were both shoved into another room with walls of red metal, trapped inside with the monster that yearned to spill mutant blood. _

Jean grimaced as she remembered… the cobwebs in her head slowly disappearing…

_The monster was a gorilla of a man, veins protruding from his bulky arms. The term 'Homo sapien' in bold sprawling letters was tattooed across his bare chest. But…_

_He had powers_, Jean recalled, slightly confused. _He was a mutant-hater, but he had powers…_

_The monster hit the boy first, and she was quick to try and help him, but… the monster turned on her, using his powers. A surge of blue electricity swallowed her whole, and the smell of burnt skin filled the air…_

_Then he threw her against the wall._

_Her body refused to move after that._

Jean let go of the memory.

She licked her dry lips, wondering if she had guts to relive all that happened that night. Finally, she let out a shaky sigh before once again immersing herself within the boy's memories.

_He was fighting the implanted poison of hatred in his psyche, and in his final moments, chose to mend his ways. He was determined to reach even the tiniest layer of redemption…_

"_C-come on, then, Red… lemme h-have… it all…"_

He was an empath, and he had taken her pain away by inflicting it on himself. He had given his life away to save hers. He had chosen to suffer an agonizing death so that she would survive.

Jean swallowed, as she now sat on her bed. Her room was dark, the half-crescent moon outside her window providing the only source of light. That, and her alarm clock that blinked 7:43PM. Briefly she wondered if Scott had already come by. She remained seated for a few minutes, replaying the dream that had been haunting her for the past week. And then, she _knew_. Realization came like a spark of a lit match in the dark.

That night had been such a traumatic event that her mind protected her by burying the memory of the experience deep inside, refusing to let her find it until she was ready to face it. However, the righteous part of her, the one with the insatiable desire to do all that was right, rebelled, protesting the burial of the memory because it was an insult to the boy who died.

"Death came for me, but you took my place…" she whispered into the darkness. "And I don't even know your name…" Her words trailed off. She did not know what to say. There were no words that could bring back his life, she knew that.

Lifting her chin proudly, her next words came with inspired determination as she recited a famous quote that a former English teacher had once read to her.

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference…. And the opposite of life is not … death, it's indifference."

Indifference, the word repeated in her head.

Indifference.

To not… care.

Jean shook her head.

_I will care._

_I **will** care!_

"You wanted me to live," she said softly, not bothering to stop the tears that drenched the blanket tangled around her, "and so live, I will."

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That Thursday night, Jean Grey mourned for the boy with no name.

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The End.

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Author's Note: It's almost 7AM, and I have just finished writing this. I will probably go through it tomorrow or so for editing and spellchecks and whatnot, so gentle constructive criticism before then will be much appreciated.

I hope you found meaning in the story. The quote Jean recites is by renowned author Elie Wiesel, famous for writing Night. Also, I'd like to leave you with another meaningful quote that I had wanted to include within the story, but was unfortunately unable to. "Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it." –Eleanor Roosevelt. Thanks for reading.


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